


It Doesn't Want People

by Chicklet_Girl



Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-08
Updated: 2010-06-08
Packaged: 2017-10-17 03:02:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chicklet_Girl/pseuds/Chicklet_Girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A haunted-house story, NCIS-style</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Doesn't Want People

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Session 4, Round 7 of NCIS Last Fic Writer Standing. The prompt was "Paranormal: Write a story where the _team_ gets involved in a paranormal case, a la Mulder  & Scully, you can even reference _The X Files_ if you wish. Make it as freaky and abnormal as you want. Word count may not exceed 2000." I didn't receive any votes for Favorite or Least Favorite, and advanced to Round 8 with a score of zero. Set sometime during Season 2, pre-SWAK. The title is part of a line of dialogue from _The Changeling_ (1980): “That house is not fit to live in. No one's been able to live in it. It doesn't want people.” Tony and I recommend the movie highly.

Gibbs walked around to the other side of the body. A boy, around fifteen or sixteen, Gibbs guessed. He'd been found dead in a vacant house by the real estate agent, who was outside with the LEOs and McGee. The neighborhood was off-base, but had a lot of Navy families, so the LEOs had called in NCIS in case the victim turned out to be a dependent. The kid was lying on his back, just inside the dining room. He was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a hooded sweatshirt. Gibbs hoped they’d be able to ID him soon, so they could notify his parents.

Ducky felt the back of the boy’s head. “Oh, this is a substantial fracture. It’s most likely I’ll find a subdural hematoma once I’ve opened his skull. But notice the bruising on his face, and how his nose appears to have been broken immediately before his death? I believe our young man here ran face-first into something and fell backward, hitting his head very sharply on the floor, at which point he succumbed to the hematoma. It took several hours for him to die, but he was unconscious.”

Gibbs walked toward the dining-room window. He was surprised by a sudden draft of cold air near the center of the room. He looked around for a duct, but couldn’t see any. He shrugged it off and took some notes about checking the perimeter of the yard for footprints. The kid might have been here with someone.

^^^^^

Tony was fingerprinting the trim around the front door when he felt the back of his neck prickle, like he was being watched. He turned and… no one was there. McGee was outside, interviewing the real-estate agent – Tony could see him through the little window in the door. Kate was processing the master bedroom, and Tony could hear Ducky and Jimmy discussing the body. And Gibbs wasn’t a skulker. He just always showed up at the precise moment you said the worst thing possible. Tony shook his head a little, Wile E. Coyote-style, and kept lifting prints.

^^^^^

When Kate had finished taking pictures of the master bedroom, she put the camera in her backpack and dug out her fingerprint kit. She didn’t exactly relish the thought of lifting prints from every surface in the room, especially when they’d most likely solve the case by interviewing the victim’s friends or family. Kate sighed, taking out a brush and a container of dust.

The door slammed shut.

Kate gasped, but managed to keep from dropping her tools. She capped the dust and put it in the kit with the brush, to prevent contaminating the scene. She went to the door and twisted the doorknob. It moved, but no amount of pulling would open the door. After several more yanks, Kate swore and called Gibbs’s cell phone. “I’m trapped in the master bedroom,” she explained when he answered. “The door’s stuck.”

She heard Gibbs on the stairs and then he was outside the door. “I’m gonna try it again, from out here,” he said, and even though she saw the knob turning and heard the latch click, the door stayed shut. “Okay, Kate, I’m going to kick it,” Gibbs said. A few seconds later, the door slowly opened to reveal Gibbs standing several feet away on the other side of the hall. He raised his eyebrows. “Did you do that?”

“No,” Kate said. “I’ve been standing here by the window so I wouldn’t be hit by the door when you kicked it open.” Strange.

Before they could talk any further, McGee called up the stairs. “Boss? I’ve got some more information from the agent.”

The team met up in the living room, where Tim read from his notes. “Ms. Graham’s had the listing for three months, ever since she joined the realty firm. Apparently, the agent with the lowest seniority always gets stuck with the listing for this house.”

“It’s been for sale long enough to be a hot potato?” Tony asked.

“No, more like it’s listed almost constantly because every buyer puts it back on the market within a few months of purchase. The neighbors say it’s haunted.”

“Haunted?” Gibbs demanded.

“I’m just reporting what Graham said to me, boss. The neighborhood kids dare each other to spend the night here – one of the kitchen windows has a broken latch, so every once in awhile, one or two kids will sneak in at night and try to stay in the house until dawn.”

“So our victim was trying to prove himself by staying in the creepy haunted house? Somebody watched too much _Scooby-Doo_ as a kid,” Tony joked.

Ducky and Jimmy walked through the living room, pushing the gurney with the kid’s body in a bag. Tony felt like an asshole. “Well, Jethro,” Ducky said, opening the door. “We’re taking him back to Autopsy. With luck, we’ll have him identified shortly.” They exited, and Jimmy pulled the door shut behind them.

Gibbs looked around at the team. “Kate, go back upstairs and finish in the master bedroom. Tony, finish the living room. McGee, kitchen and dining room with me.” Everyone looked around at each other for a few seconds. “ _Now_ ,” Gibbs said, grabbing the collar of McGee’s jacket and pointing him toward the dining room. “Go.”

A hollow, metallic clang rang throughout the house, perhaps from the basement, followed by many more, in a constant, steady rhythm. “Uhhhh….” McGee said just before every door in the place started banging open and shut, open and shut, open and shut. The kitchen cabinets were a riot of noise and movement. Only the front door was motionless, standing open to reveal the shrubs and grass of the front yard.

They ran out the door and turned to face the house. The door shut behind them and the clanging stopped. Everyone looked around at each other. Tony was oddly gratified to see that even Gibbs looked a little freaked out.

Gibbs looked from Kate to Tony to McGee. “You have all your stuff?” They all pointed to the packs on their shoulders. “Good. We’re heading back. McGee, get the registry of deeds for the house, we need to know who’s owned it and when….”

^^^^^

An hour later, they were in the bullpen when McGee pulled a sheaf of papers from the printer. “Got the registry, boss.” He skimmed the list. “It’s in reverse chronological order. The current owner is John Montgomery, he’s been trying to sell the house for four months. Lots of owners over the past two decades. Nobody’s owned it longer than a year or so…. Ohhhh.”

“What?” Gibbs sounded… edgy.

“In 1992, Marine Corporal David Stone came home late from work, shot his wife and two children, and then himself.”

“Shit, this is _that_ house?” Gibbs came over and took the registry from McGee.

“You know what that’s about?” Kate asked.

Gibbs looked up from the list. “Franks worked the case right before I joined NIS. He said it was the worst crime scene he’d ever seen.” Gibbs took a slow breath. “Stone shot his wife while she was in the kitchen, then killed each of his children in their beds. Then he sat at the dining room table and ate his gun.”

“This is the part of the movie where the audience knows the house is haunted, but none of the characters believe it yet,” Tony volunteered.

“DiNozzo…” Gibbs started, only to be interrupted by his cell phone. “Gibbs. Yeah. We’ll be right down.” He hung up and said, “Abby wants us in the lab.”

When they got downstairs, Abby was standing in the middle of the lab, with her hands on her hips. “You went to a haunted house and didn’t tell me?” she shouted.

“It’s not haunted, Abs,” Gibbs said.

“Jimmy said there’s a cold spot in the dining room. Classic sign.” She glared at Gibbs.

Gibbs sighed. “Abby, I walked through that spot too. It’s just bad duct work.” Abby’s mouth dropped open, and then she got a shrewd look on her face, like Gibbs was her latest project. She looked at Tony expectantly.

“I _did_ feel like I was being watched, but nobody was there,” he pointed out to Gibbs.

Kate looked amused. “I was trapped in the bedroom when the door slammed shut suddenly.”

McGee chimed in, “And then of course, there was the clanging and all of the doors opening and closing.” He looked sort of smug, like he was playing devil’s advocate.

“Gibbs!” Abby shouted. “That house is haunted!”

“You believe in ghosts?” McGee asked incredulously. “But you love science!”

“Yes, I do, but science doesn’t know everything, not even now. During the 1854 cholera epidemic on Broad Street in London, Dr. John Snow used a map and interviews to prove that contaminated water from the Broad Street pump was spreading the disease, even though he couldn’t see the bacteria in his microscope. Just because you can’t see something or measure it with instruments doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”

“But a _ghost_?”

Tony butted in. “Hey McSkeptic, don’t you remember the creepy way every door in the place started moving at the same time?”

Gibbs stood in front of Abby. “You ID the victim yet?”

“I’m running his prints through the database. It could take awhile.”

Gibbs turned toward the door. “We still need exemplars from the house. C’mon.” The team stood still, looking at him. “ _Now_.”

“Gibbs, I could have Sister Rosita talk to Father Joe about an exorcism,” Abby said.

“Not necessary,” Gibbs said, walking out of the lab. A sharp whistle brought everyone shuffling after him like a bunch of ducklings. Tony took up the rear. He didn’t _want_ to be one of the stupid characters who went back into the house even though the audience was yelling at them not to. He knew better than to do that.

^^^^^

The noise and movement started up again as soon as they got in the door, this time with a ferocious wind swirling around them. If there’d been any furniture in the place, they’d have been dead. Tony tried to open the front door, but it was stuck. He could feel… _something_ pulling against his attempts.

“He was a corporal, right? Maybe he’ll take an order!” Tony yelled to Gibbs. Gibbs looked confused, so Tony said it again. “Maybe he’ll take an order, _Gunnery Sergeant_!” Gibbs rolled his eyes, but turned toward the center of the room.

“Corporal Stone! You are to move position immediately!” The activity didn’t stop, but it seemed to slow down. “That is an order, Marine!” Gibbs was red in the face. Tony couldn’t tell if it was from exertion or embarrassment. “Corporal Stone, move out!”

Everything stopped, and the sudden silence was eerie. Kate’s hair had been blown to hell and back, and she tried to finger-comb it into place. They all looked around, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Well, what’s the hold-up?” Gibbs asked, heading toward the kitchen. “Get those prints.”

“Whaddaya know?” Tony whispered to Kate and McGee. “Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Ghostbuster.”

^^^^^

Tony went straight to his DVD shelves as soon as he got home and pulled out all of the horror movies. _Poltergeist_. _The Changeling_. _Halloween_. _The Exorcist_. Even _Alien_. He put them into a Dolce  & Gabbana shoebox and put the box on the floor of the hall closet, all the way in the back, behind his ski boots. They were going to be out of the rotation for awhile.


End file.
